Author's note: Sorry, this has taken a while to get here. And, yes, I have changed my penname. For those of you not paying attention, this is the artist formerly known as gottaluvarnrimmer. I changed my email address so I thought, why not give all my screennames a bit of an overhaul! Anyway, RR as always and enjoy!
Spanners walked down the all-too-familiar corridor which linked his office to Ace's. A figure passed him, but he was in too much of a rush to notice who it was.
"David?"
Spanners recognized the voice and turned round with a smile.
"Padre!" he said to one of the only people that made his life bearable, "How are you?"
"Oh, I'm just fine. What about you?"
"Oh, can't complain," Spanners lied, "Just got another job on."
"Oh, good. It's, er, it's best for you to keep busy," Padre said in an undertone. He was the only other person that knew about Spanners' therapy sessions.
"Yes, I suppose. Anyway, Ace'll be wondering where I am. I'll see you later, Padre."
"Yes, dear. Bless you."
Spanners smiled again and walked on. He stopped by a door labelled "Arnold Rimmer" with the 'Arnold' scratched out and 'Ace' written above it. He knocked on it. No reply. He knocked again, slightly harder. He gingerly tried the doorhandle, but it was locked. Spanners frowned and stood back from the door, backing into another in the process. He span round and looked at the name: "Melanie Carter". Lister rolled his eyes; trust Ace to pick an office right next to Mellie's. He went in to Mellie's office, not bothering to knock - likelihood was Mellie would be too busy chatting up some guy (and by 'some guy' he meant 'Ace') to notice he had entered without permission.
Sure enough he found them, foreheads almost touching, whispering to each other. He cleared his throat and they both span round.
"Ah," Ace said, slightly squeakily, "Spanners. Good to see you. Just step into my office, I'll be there in a mo."
"It's locked."
"Ah," Ace repeated, "Er, fine, well if you'd care to, er…" he unwillingly walked over to Spanners and led him out of the room and into his own office.
Once there, Ace sat down behind his desk, "Look, I'll come clean with you. I didn't invite you down here to do engineering work. I want you to come with me on this next mission."
Spanners stared at him, "Me? W-why?"
"You're showing potential, Spanners. You're thesis on time dilation in inter-reality space hops was most fascinating. In fact, some of the research boffins have started to plan experiments based on your theory."
Spanners couldn't help but give a small laugh, "You're seriously telling me that because of that one paper, they decided to let me go on a mission with you."
"Obviously not just that, Spanners," Ace continued, "You show spirit. You show a passion for outer space. I like your character and I want to give you a chance to grow."
Spanners felt like he was going to cry, "Ace, you will not regret this!"
Ace smiled, "I suppose you want to know what the mission is?"
"No! I don't care!"
"Well, I feel I should tell you anyway," Ace said, "Supplies are running low for this base, and rival bases are refusing to help."
"Can't we just import from another planet?"
"Sound idea, Spanners, in theory," he said with a raised finger, "Trouble is, all of the nearest planets - Earth, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - are already delivering their goods to the rival bases here on Jupiter. The closest planet that has offered help is Mecury, and we can't afford to ship food and other amenities all the way from Mercury."
"So, basically, we have a problem."
"Yes. And that's where we come in. Seeing as there is nothing available to us in this universe…"
"We have to go to another universe…" Spanners finished.
"Spot on, Spanners. We're going to dimension jump again."
Lister walked down the all-too-familiar corridor which linked his quarters with the landing bays. He turned into the exit labelled 'Starbug 2', only instead of going straight forward towards the spacecraft as he was used to, he turned right and up a flight of stairs to join the others in the Communications Booth. The first thing he noticed was that all the lights on the panel in front of him were illuminated. He didn't have much experience in Communications, but he was sure that that couldn't be good.
"Where the smeg have you been?" Rimmer's voice was the first thing Lister heard above the wailing sirens.
"Does it matter?" Lister shouted back, "I'm here now, aren't I?"
"Sirs," Kryten interrupted the argument, "We don't have much time; we need to prepare the landing bay for the dimension jumping craft's arrival, which means moving Starbug 2 into Starbug 4's bay."
"Hold on. Dimension jumping?" Lister asked curiously, "You don't think…"
"It's likely, sir," Kryten replied before he'd even asked the question. Rimmer groaned and ran a hand over his face.
"You've got to be kidding me!" he yelled as the sirens volume increased. Lister grinned - it was these little moments that made life worth living!
"What?" Cat said clearly confused, "What's happening?"
"Standby," Holly's voice said, although her image was nowhere to be seen, "Craft is ready to DJ."
"Right," Lister suddenly jumped into action. He ran out of the room and leapt down the flight of stairs three at a time, took a sharp right into the landing bay which almost sent him skidding across the floor, and pelted over to the 'Bug. He climbed the stairs, ran into the cockpit and urgently revved up the engine. He lowered the wheels whilst Kryten, back in the Communications Room, opened up the door between the two Starbugs' bays. From then on it was slow progress, and everyone but Kryten was sure that they would be too late. Quarter of a mile away, they saw Ace's Wildfire zoom effortlessly into the Dwarf. Starbug 2 just had time to meander into the landing bay before Wildfire touched down.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, apart from Rimmer who breathed a sigh of desperation - Ace was back, and Rimmer was sure he would want to know what he had been up to. "Well, Ace," he imagined his response, "Since you're last visit I managed to wipe out the population of an entire planet, been taken prisoner by my own mind, been possessed by the King of the Potato People, and almost killed several times. What's up with you?" He didn't like to think about Ace's reply.
Meanwhile, Lister sat on the banister to the outer stairs of Starbug and slid down.
"Don't do that! You could break your neck!" Ace said, doing exactly the same thing on the Wildfire. Lister smiled, walked up to Ace and high-fived him.
"How've you been?" Lister asked him.
"Not bad. Yourself?"
"Well, things could be better. But as long as Rimmer's miserable, I don't really mind!"
Ace winced. He knew this version of him was a weasel-minded, despicable, toad of a man, but he was still him, and it hurt Ace to hear someone speak that way of him. He forced a laugh anyway.
"Skipper, I'd like for you to meet someone."
Lister turned towards the door of the Wildfire and got the shock (or one of the shocks) of his life. Standing in the doorframe was…Lister.
A/n: Well, well, well. I wonder what's going to happen next…
